Painkiller
by cougarlips
Summary: "The moon shone high in the sky, glistening against sweat-drenched hair and hot blood on pavement. As the last tire squealed out of earshot, sobs bubbled out of chests and jeans scratched against the road as one embraced another." Threeshot. 3rd person POV. Set immediately after 6x16/predictions for 7x01.
1. Chapter 1

The group sat on their knees with glazed-over eyes as Negan rounded his men up and drove away. The moon shone high in the sky, glistening against sweat-drenched hair and hot blood on pavement. As the last tire squealed out of earshot, sobs bubbled out of chests and jeans scratched against the road as one embraced another.

With a determined resolve on her sickly face, Rosita pushed herself to Daryl, who slumped to the ground in front of him the moment the Saviors left. She held him in her arms, cradling his head under her chin as her body trembled with the grief seeping into her bones.

Glenn launched himself across the way at Maggie, tears rolling down his face as she cried into his chest, partly from the scene in front of them and partly from the searing pain in her stomach. Aaron slowly gathered the stretcher behind them and helped lay her across it once more, though her hand never left Glenn's and her eyes never once opened.

Michonne stood with shaking legs and first helped Daryl and Rosita into the RV, resting her hands on their shoulders in the only way she knew would give any sort of comfort. She helped lift Maggie alongside Glenn and Aaron, helped carry and place her on the bed in the back where a nestle of blankets had already been created.

Back on the pavement, she watched Carl trying to talk sense into Rick, who remained on his knees with his face blank and eyes unseeing. She watched Eugene fall to the ground with his eyes locked on the corpse only a few feet away, pure terror in the whites of his eyes. She watched Sasha stand on her feet with trembling fists at her sides, marching to Rick on the pavement and screaming as she rammed her knuckles into his cheek.

It took several seconds for the reality of the situation to sink in: Rick sat and allowed Sasha to beat into him, and beat him she did until Michonne watched Carl draw his pistol on her. She looked at him with wide, shocked eyes before turning back to Rick, broken under her still-clenched hands, not a sound escaping his lips but his expression louder than any noise he could make.

It didn't take much coercion to get in the RV, and the muffled crying was the sound to which Carl and Michonne wrapped Abraham's body in one of the sheets Aaron left folded haphazardly on the ground. No, they decided - they wouldn't leave him.

The ride to Hilltop was a stressful one, and the sun was beginning to shine over the horizon as they reached its gates.

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a/n: this is part 1 of 3! hopefully the other two chapters will be up before tomorrow night, but i make no promises. i have two essays i've had a month to work on that i haven't even started and are due tomorrow oops. i hope you guys like it! and if anyone's interested, i have a new tumblr dedicated to twd+ftwd, the cast, and my jesus/daryl shenanigans lmao. it's thatsmygvn :)


	2. Chapter 2

Jesus heard the roaring of its engine long before it reached the Hilltop. He gathered his clothes and slipped them on, just managing to slide on his gloves when they parked the RV. He knew something was wrong when, through the windshield, he saw Sasha's tear-stained face and bloodied knuckles. When the doors opened and the first to come out were Glenn, Aaron, and a stretcher-bound Maggie, Jesus bolted forward, though they brushed past him. Glenn called over his shoulder, his voice hoarse: "We know where to go - help Daryl."

Worry weighing down his chest, Jesus obeyed and watched as Rosita came out sideways, supporting an nearly-unconscious, bloody, and broken Daryl Dixon. He rushed forward and grabbed his other arm before Rosita cursed at him. "Fuck - be careful of his shoulder. He needs a doctor. They shot him yesterday and those assholes didn't do a damn thing except stick a sheet over him to staunch the blood."

Jesus nodded, his heart falling as he watched Michonne, Sasha, and Eugene follow them out of the vehicle with a blood-soaked sheet in their arms. At this point, it seemed as though everyone in the Hilltop was watching the scene. Some ran forward to help carry the sick and the injured; some walked forward and began gently guiding them to the funeral pyre. Jesus shook his head before he began guiding Rosita towards Harlan's trailer.

"Is Maggie okay?" Jesus asked Rosita, and he turned to see her face wide open with fear.

"I have no idea," she said, shaking her head.

Jesus allowed her to enter the trailer first, and once inside he ignored the bustling of Harlan with Maggie and began clearing a spot for Daryl on the second gurney. Rosita hovered, and when Harlan began ushering her out, she violently shook her head. "You need to help Maggie, and Daryl can't afford to wait. I was helping Denise before she was killed. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

Jesus exited the room and went back outside, knowing he would be of no use in there, despite how much he ached to help. He ran to Eugene and Sasha, who huddled together with bottles of water beside them and looks of loss on their faces.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked the pair, and they shook their heads mutely.

Silently, he made his way towards the RV, seeing Michonne through the window. He hopped up the steps softly and couldn't believe the look of complete terror on Rick's face.

Rick looked up at Jesus when he entered and shook his head. "Mag - Maggie, is she okay?" he asked hoarsely.

Jesus answered honestly, "Harlan is doing everything he can for her and Daryl both."

Rick cursed, looking down at his hands. "Daryl, Daryl… what happened to Daryl?" he asked Michonne, who was wetting one of the rags in the RV with water and cleaning the blood from his face.

She met Carl's eye before taking a deep breath. "When he left Alexandria yesterday, he was going to track Dwight and take him out. We caught up with him but went our separate ways. Dwight took Glenn and I… used us as bait for Daryl and Rosita then shot him once he had a clear shot. They threw us in that hatch until… until earlier."

She dropped her eyes and cleared her throat, shaking her head before returning to her steady cleaning of his face. Jesus watched quietly before finally asking, "What _happened_? You guys - I'm glad you're okay, but you look like you've been through hell and back. You show up and Maggie can't even stand up straight, Daryl's unconscious. We're lighting a pyre and it isn't even noon…"

Carl continued for Jesus where he picked off. "Maggie had a complication. We were on our way here yesterday afternoon but our routes kept getting blocked off by Saviors."

"Saviors?" Jesus asked, and Carl's lip curled.

"We tried to outrun them. We split up and left Eugene the RV to lure them away, but they still caught us. They lined us all up, one by one, and Negan showed up to pick one of us to 'punish'."

"Negan _himself_ showed up?" Jesus asked incredulously.

Michonne nodded, curling her fingers into a fist. "He spared Daryl and Maggie. The rest of us…. He settled on Abraham."

Jesus looked at Rick, still sallow-faced and drenched in sweat. He shook his head and let them be.

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i have a tumblr for all my twd blogging! jesus/daryl shenanigans, liveblogging my rewatch and ftwd, my love of nick clark and tom payne, plus general other related things. if you'd like to check it out and maybe give it a follow, it's thatsmygvn :)


	3. Chapter 3

Daryl woke up with a needle nestled in the crook of his elbow, to the sound of pages turning beside his bed. He blinked his eyes in the dim light, immediately recognising the distinctive drapes and dusty air of the Barrington House. His head swam against the lumpy pillow as he tried to sit up, not quite catching the sound of heavy boots thumping over hardwood floors or the hushing of a gentle tenor above him.

His eyes locked onto the bright aqua ones above him as Jesus pressed down on his chest with an authoritative force. "You have some serious painkillers going through you right now," Jesus warned. "You wouldn't be able to kick your sheets off, let alone leave the House."

Daryl grumbled and settled down into the starchy sheets. "Where's everyone at?" he mumbled, his voice slurring.

Jesus took his seat and looked at Daryl seriously. "Michonne, Carl, Eugene, and Sasha are back at Alexandria. Aaron and Glenn are with Maggie in the infirmary. Rosita's over there with them, helping Harlan out. She got the bullet fragments out of your shoulder and patched you up before we brought you over here."

"How's she? Maggie?" he asked. As his brows furrowed under his hair, Jesus waved his hands noncommittally.

"The stress isn't doing her any favors, but she's stable and in good hands. You've been out for a day and a half. You've had a few blood transfusions to make up for what you lost."

Daryl nodded sluggishly. He could feel the medicine pumping through his veins now. He lifted a hand to brush against his shoulder, wincing at the tightly bound pressure in his chest. Jesus swatted his arm down. "You do anything now, you'll aggravate the wound and it'll take even longer to heal than it already will. If you hurt at all you let me know and I'll see to it, but don't move otherwise."

Silence fell between them. Daryl allowed himself to rest against the pillows but his eyes remained wide as he traced the patterns of the wallpaper on the ceiling of the bedroom. He focused his ears on the sound of Jesus breathing: slow and languid, punctuated with deep sighs and the sound of pages turning against calloused fingertips. Outside he heard the animals yell with indignation that could only mean they hadn't been fed yet. Footsteps echoed around in the distant half of the House. Daryl sighed and turned his head to Jesus, who met his blue eyes evenly.

"Lass time I was out of commision," he began, his words slurring, "Merle w's there to keep me alive."

"Who's Merle?" Jesus asked, his eyebrow rising.

Daryl shook his question off. "He wasn' _really_ there - he was gone with the Governor already, prob'ly. It was all in my head."

Jesus leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the bed. "What happened?" he asked curiously.

Daryl scoffed, wincing slightly as it jostled his shoulder. "Fell on top of my bolts. Came back and was mistaken for a walker. Our Spotter was shit, though - she nicked my temple, didn' even leave a nasty scar."

He stopped and raised his good hand to lift his hair, revealing the straight line along the side of his head where the skin was smooth and no hair grew. Then he reached down to lift his shirt on his left side, revealing small puncture wounds where he pulled his weapon out from his side.

"'fore that, though," he continued, "Maggie's damn horse threw me into a ravine. 'm talkin' 15 feet of earth in front of me and walkers stuck in the mud behind me."

"Is that when Merle came?" Jesus asked, and Daryl laughed, coughing and wincing once again.

"Asshole knew he could piss me off and it'd get me up again. Accused me of bein' into girls and said no one will ever care about me like he did."

Jesus watched him curiously, but he didn't interrupt. Daryl met his eyes, though they were glazed over with the effect of the painkiller and his own memory. "Stupid piece o' shit, Merle was. Talkin' shit like he spent his whole life tryna make me a man, but he was gone the whole time."

With his eyes still trained forward, Daryl took a deep breath. Then, with a huff, he closed his eyes and Jesus faced Rick on the other side of the room. "Merle?" he asked.

Rick scrunched his brows together. "His brother. He was among the few I first met when I got to Atlanta. He beat one of our own into the concrete before pulling a rifle on the rest of us. I cuffed him to the roof and he sawed his hand off to escape before we went back for him."

Jesus's eyes widened and he sighed. "So this Merle was quite the character."

"Oh yeah," Rick replied; "He was an accomplished bruiser and dishonorably discharged for punching a sergeant in the face. He was racist, sexist, _and_ misogynistic." He blew out a deep breath and eyed Daryl's sleeping form.

"Was he homophobic, too?" Jesus asked, and Rick looked to his hands in contemplation.

For several seconds, he said nothing, but then he shook his hed: "No, he never gave that impression. Still, though, we're lucky Daryl never took much after him."

The two lapsed into silence before Rick excused himself to check on Maggie. When Jesus was left by himself, he turned his eyes to Daryl's sleeping form on the bed. He couldn't help the smirk that formed on his lips when Daryl peeked open an eye to look at him.

"Merle didn' have nothin' against no gays," he muttered. He blinked slowly. When he opened his eyes once more, they were slightly crosseyed and his lashes fluttered against his cheeks.

"And what about you?" Jesus asked jokingly, and he smiled when Daryl scoffed.

"I ain't some hypocrite," he said, his voice slow and ending with a deep breath that settled into light snores. Jesus sat back with his book lying forgotten in his lap. Something in his stomach jumped when the words registered in his mind, and he tucked his chin to his chest to hide the grin that stretched over his lips.

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 **a/n** : that's a wrap on this three-shot! now, if you'll excuse me, i have two research papers i have to write before they're due sunday and a survey for a government internship that closes in like three days. i bid you as adieu.

like with my previous chapters, here is my shameless self promo: my twd blog, full of gifs from the show + ftwd, the cast, and darus/jeryl fan works, is thatsmygvn.


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